Fallen Premiums – Round 14, 2025

A heap of options to get too, so besides Colby McKercher who I’ve dug into for personal reasons, I’ll go rapid-fire through a fair few options this edition that have caught my eye. The Hawks bounced back with a big win against the Dogs and I’ve found myself into the top 100 and sitting at 70 overall, great weekend of footy on my end, hopefully the byes are treating everyone kindly.

Defenders

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera (STK, $507.1k, (-$36.6k), 106.2 AVG, 74 BE) not much to be said regarding Nas. He’s at an incredibly generous price point, you know what you’re getting with his scoring and he’s the perfect pick now off his bye. If you need a defender, don’t look any further, can’t see him not being a top 8 defender from here on.

Colby McKercher (NTH, $393.2k, (-$83.7k), 69 AVG, 25 BE) typing his name once wasn’t enough, Colby MF McKercher ladies and gentleman. Shout out to Drew Jones who runs @GoatFantasyNews on Twitter / X, who actually flagged this move last week.

“Word out of North is Colby will be brought into the game more, wing/fwd role not utilising his talents. McKercher’s impact (and scoring) has dropped off significantly this season, Roo would like to get the ball in his hands again.”

This past Sunday was the first time since the final game of 2024 where McKercher spent a full game in defence, with that came 35 disposals, some serious line-breaking dash, a North win and 144 points. Harry Sheezel post-game on Triple M had this to say regarding Colby:

“When he (McKercher) puts his head down, backs his speed in, no one can go with him. We love the ball in his hands, we put him back to half back today, think we can see what he can do back there and he complimented Caleb Daniel really well. I think they’re gonna work really well together back there.”

So, for my basis of analysing his career thus far, games where McKercher had at least a single kick-in since his debut in 2024: 15 game sample size, 106.3 points (this sample size includes a tagged game via Cincotta, and his first three games as an AFL player).

Going purely off games he did play in defence eliminates the Richmond game 3 rounds ago where he did go large, but was utilised as a mid, bringing his sample size down to 14 with an average of 104.7 points.

There’s genuine upside here, just removing his first 3 senior level games that average as a defender shoots up to 110 points (11 game sample size). I’ll throw out one more Harry Sheezel quote from midweek before finally getting to the elephant in the room.

“We have guys playing sometimes three or four positions per game, we’re not sure if that’s working for us. Moving forward, we’ll look to have people focusing on one position for four quarters to be more consistent.”

So, will McKercher get shuffled back to half forward or a wing? Coming off a win, with a performance like that (especially the second half), it’s hard to think a winning formula will get tinkered with so soon. However, if it were to occur, there’s a large possibility McKercher will be above the 500k mark allowing for an easy sideways swap.

Midfielders

Sam Walsh (CAR, $489k, (-$94.9k), 99.2 AVG, 98 BE) 76% CBA’s for Walsh against the Dons, and arguably best on for the Blues with 32 touches, 14 contested going at 74% DE. With two great fixtures against the Eagles and North, a very friendly price point, and scope for a turnaround in form, there’s a lot to like with this selection.

Zak Butters (PTA, $563.7k, (-$85.2k), 121.1 AVG, 90 BE) GWS and a Bedford tag? No worries Butters reckons. Connor Rozee got his fair share of attention against the Giants and with that came Butters slaughtering the supposed cash-drop we were all expecting. Port do play the Dees this week who may opt to put some time into Zak, along with the Swans who may do similar after the massive game Butters had against the Swans in round 7. So there’s no immediate rush to grab Butters, but this week is just as good as any to grab the man, many were looking at paying an additional 100k for him a few weeks ago after all.

Sam Docherty (CAR, $403k, ($-84.9k), 77.9 AVG, 13 BE) back to back tons playing out of the Blues defence, my two largest issue with the pick stems from Doch not having any kick-ins which hurts both his floor and ceiling scoring potential. Similar to McKercher who we will get to, there is also the risk of magnet shuffling, but Docherty much like Callum Mills & Colby offers a great price point for those struggling to to complete their teams with the limited cash-gen. Eagles and North the next two games should allow for an immediate pay-off. A good sort of punt to have in your flex positions!

 

Caleb Serong (FRE, $535.7k, (-$87.7k), 105.5 AVG, 112 BE) the ceiling of Serong early last season seems to have been a flash in the pan, since his bye in 2024 Caleb Serong has only scored above a 125 in 2/23 games. On the flip side, he’s only gone below 90 in 3/23 games. A very stable scorer who’s giving you a boring ton most weeks, the upside in the pick comes from games against North, Dons, Eagles still to come, along with Andy Brayshaw starting to garner the attention from the opposition. Fresh off the bye, you could do worse than picking 2x All Australian.

Rucks

Tom De Koning (CAR, $536k, (-$11.1k), 113.5 AVG, 91 BE) I controversially sacked Gawn for TDK last week, and with that came a 15 point net-gain and near 200k ITB, it may backfire, but you can’t make ground doing the same moves as everyone else… TDK has a date with Matt Flynn this week which again offers a nice sugar hit for new owners. DFSAustralia has Carlton’s ruck run rates as the 4th most favourable behind Geelong, Sydney and Freo, and IMO De Koning seems to be the clear 3rd peg in the ruck line behind Max and Xerri.

Forwards

Jason Horne-Francis (PTA, $499.6k, (-$37.4k), 93.5 AVG, 155 BE) Slated to return this week, Horne-Francis similar to Sam Darcy who I flagged as a watch list player that will drop significantly in price is in the same category. Two tons and JHF will be priced approx 450k making for the perfect selection to finish your forward lines.